The Sportspace Concept Is A Hot Kia Wagon That'll Fill You With Lust

A few years ago, if you combined the words ‘Kia’ and ‘desirable’ in a sentence without the use of the word ‘not’, you’d be laughed at. But now, the Korean car maker seems to be coming out with some genuinely tempting motors: just look at the Kia Pro Cee’d GT we ran for six months, and now this: the Sportspace concept.

It’s essentially a sexified Kia Optima with a big boot dumped on the end, and we rather like the results, with that low roofline and ‘hidden’ retractable doorhandles giving a nicely sleek look. It’s powered by a 1.7-litre diesel/electric hybrid powertrain, which is mated to a sequential automatic shift-by-wire gearbox.

The interior has more mad concept touches than the relatively production-ready exterior, with its minimalist dashboard housing a large touch screen and little else. There’s also an excessively beefy transmission tunnel running through the cabin.

The concept will be showcased at the Geneva motorshow, but a production Optima estate with similar styling is likely to follow eventually.